The fifth assignment for DJ Smith, undercover agent for HMRC and her drug detecting cat Gorgonzola.  

On a webcam at the Seabird Centre at North Berwick near Edinburgh, DJ witnesses a murder by drug baron Hiram J Spinks.  Her new assignment is in the role of cleaner at the King James Hunting Lodge where she is to investigate the man behind the cannabis factories in the East Neuk of Fife.  Never one to stick strictly to orders, when she realizes that the Lodge is an ideal front for Spinks’drug running and money laundering, she changes roles and risks renting an apartment there as upper‑crust Vanessa Dewar‑Smythe. 

Who among the residents is working for Spinks?  Is it the reclusive writer of historical novels?  The crusty retired Major and his bossy overbearing wife?  The inquisitive antique dealer?  The friendly wildlife photographer?

Danger comes from unexpected quarters through the behaviour of her sniffer cat Gorgonzola and the actions of flamboyant and unscrupulous Sapphire McGurk, DJ’s co‑exhibitor at the Pittenweem Arts Festival.

Hunted – or hunter?  Spinks is one step ahead as DJ attempts to track him down on the golf courses of St Andrews, at the World Hickory Golf Championships on the links of Musselburgh Old Course near Edinburgh, and at the Fireworks Concert that marks the end of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Extract from No. 1 Suspect

The narrow ray of light passing across the surface of the crushed ice transformed it into a heap of glittering diamonds. Whatever was being kept safely under lock and key must be hidden under the ice: a consignment of cannabis, heroin or cocaine, rather than a haul of lobsters or fish.

I scraped away a layer of ice, shifting it aside to left and to right. Only more ice. I excavated more vigorously, deeper and deeper...six inches... twelve inches...still nothing but ice. My hands were aching from the old and the spoil heap of cast-aside ice had begun to cascade onto the floor, when at last a faint grey shape appeared beneath the layer of crystals. I excavated a small hole to enable my fingers to touch the object. Cloth, not the waterproof wrapping used for drug packages. Cloth? Puzzled, I enlarged the cleared area. It was definitely dark blue cotton, with a small button and, a couple of inches away, another. Shirt buttons. I snatched my hands away, mind trying to deny the sinister truth.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself to push aside more  ice. A trouser belt. I stared at it. I knew now the purpose of the padlock on the hatch. It had been to conceal the body of the man lying under the few remaining inches of ice.